A man was lucky to walk away unscathed after driving into the side of a moving freight train in Cardup on Sunday morning.
Emergency Services were called to the rail crossing on Hopkinson Rd, near Bishop Rd, just after 8am after a report of a collision between a white Toyota Camry sedan and a train carrying chemicals.
Police are alleging the 34-year-old driver, who was the sole occupant of the Camry, failed to stop at the railway crossing.
A witness at the crash said they looked on in astonishment as the driver failed to see the flashing red lights, the ‘stop on red signal’ sign, and the freight train hurtling toward the intersection.
“He still had plenty of time to stop … driver wasn’t speeding or driving erratically, he just had no idea. The first one to two carriages were already across the line and he drove straight into the side of a carriage four or five along. Bounced off and ended up stuck on the mound of the tracks,” witness and first responder Dylan Clayton said.
A friend of the driver quickly rose to his defence, criticising the lack of boom gates at the crossing.
“I didn’t realise there were no boom bars, I mean it’s really dangerous,” Adelen Chew said.
“When you look at the wreckage, I really think that I feel for him like, I’m just glad there was no one else in the car.”
But locals have lambasted both the driver for his actions and his friend for her remarks.
“You should not be on the road if you did not see the flashing lights or 1000 tons worth of train going down a rail line. You are dangerous, not the crossing,” Brett Lee said.
“Bet the guy wants boom gates at traffic lights. No sympathy,” Daniel Iyer said.
“It is a case of drivers needing to take responsibility for their actions. People continually complain about the ‘Nanny State’. Well now we all know why it exists: too many people are arrogant, entitled or downright stupid,” Glenda Charles said.
Around 80 percent of rail crossings in Australia are not fitted with boom gates, though the majority of those are in rural and regional locations.
With the combined population around Byford and Mundijong expected to triple over the next couple of decades, we asked Main Roads whether there were any plans to fit boom gates at any of the level crossings currently without them in the Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale.
“Main Roads is continually assessing level crossings for future upgrades, including in the Serpentine Jarrahdale area,” a spokesperson said.
“There are several factors which are considered in determining the requirement for the installation of supplementary boom gates at flashing light controls.
“These include the number of operational tracks, the types of rail operations (i.e. passenger/freight/passenger and freight), incident history and changes to traffic volumes.”
They confirmed this was the first crash recorded at the crossing in the last ten years.
“I lived there for 21 years and that is the first car v train accident,” Maree Harding said.
The Camry driver was uninjured in Sunday’s accident and was issued with a traffic infringement for failing to stop.
